Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that 26 people were killed in southern Lebanon, four in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel province and one in Choueifat, a neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs that was not subjected to evacuation warnings on Monday.
The deaths brought the total toll to 3768 killed in Lebanon after 13 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah and now nearly two months since Israel launched its ground invasion.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on reports that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the text of a ceasefire deal. But a senior Israeli official told Reuters that Tuesday’s cabinet meeting was intended to approve the text.
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.Credit: AP
Israeli officials had said earlier that a deal to end the war was getting closer, though some issues remained, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism even as Israel continued to bombard Lebanon and Hezbollah kept up rocket fire.
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Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said Israel would maintain the ability to strike southern Lebanon under any agreement. Lebanon has previously objected to wording that would grant Israel such a right.
The US has pushed for a deal to end more than a year of hostilities between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, which erupted in parallel with Israel’s war against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza and has drastically escalated over the past two months.
In Beirut, Elias Bou Saab, Lebanon’s deputy parliament Speaker, said there were “no serious obstacles” left to start implementing a US-proposed ceasefire with Israel “unless Netanyahu changes his mind”.
He said the proposal would entail an Israeli military withdrawal from south Lebanon and regular Lebanese army troops deploying in the border region, long a Hezbollah stronghold, within 60 days.
A sticking point on who would monitor compliance with the ceasefire had been resolved in the last 24 hours with an agreement to set up a five-country committee, including France and chaired by the US, he said.
A Western diplomat said another stumbling block had been the sequencing of Israel’s withdrawal, the Lebanese army’s deployment and the return of displaced Lebanese to their homes in south Lebanon.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut, while Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvos yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
Reuters, AP